Blogger Babble: Peak of Chic

By Emily Hsieh
July 16, 2010

Launched in 2006, The Peak of Chic, written by Jennifer Boles, was early to the design blogging scene, covering her passion for interiors and decorators like Dorothy Draper and Billy Baldwin from bygone eras. As it turns out, Boles was hardly the only one with an appreciation for old-school glamour, and her column quickly gained a large and loyal following. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Hollywood Regency look Boles first championed rose in popularity within the last couple years too. Recently, we took time out with the Atlanta native to learn a bit more about the blog and the things Boles considers the peak of chic right now.

The Inside Source: How’d you end up starting a design blog?

Jennifer Boles: It began as a creative outlet for myself. When I started back in 2006, I knew nothing about blogs. My background is more in business but my passion was always interior design, especially rooted in history. I was spending an inordinate amount of time looking up 20’s and 30’s decorators and collecting old design books. I kept thinking, “Am I the only one who’s interested in these dead decorators?” And then I launched the blog and found there are a lot of people who have similar interests. I had no idea it would take off the way it did.

TIS: What’s Peak of Chic all about?

JB: I was a history major in college, and have always been fascinated by the period between World War I and World War II. I love finding old interiors and breaking them down for people and showing them how relevant they still are today. I discuss current trends or a new line here and there the core focus is still on design history.

TIS: What’s on your blog roll?

JB: Style Court, Mrs. Blandings, Pigtown Design, designer Grant K. Gibson’s blog, and The Blue Remembered Hills are just a few of the ones I visit on a daily basis.

TIS: Who are some of your all-time favorite designers?

JB: Dorothy Draper for her theatricality, and also Ruby Ross Wood, Billy Baldwin, and Van Day Truex, even though as the former design director at Tiffany he wasn’t a strict interior designer.

TIS: Ronda Carmen from All The Best Blog told us you have an incredible archive of House & Garden Magazines. Where’d they come from?

JB: I get them on eBay, as I do most of my other design books too. I have a bunch of old House Beautifuls too. I don’t know of anywhere in Atlanta where you can get old vintage magazines. We don’t have great vintage bookstores here either. So I troll eBay and go through the old magazine section. I tend to focus on the 1930’s—it’s a decade I really adore in design. Even going back to the 20’s, it seemed like such an exciting period economically, politically, and also felt like the birth of modern design. People were getting rid of their Victorian clutter, and embracing sleek lines and materials like chrome. There was a glamour in how people dressed, with men in their tails and top hats and women in their bias cut evening gowns. And in the 30’s, we were continuing that streamlined modernism, and also that whole Hollywood Regency look. There were a lot of things going on in design at the time, and all of it felt very sophisticated and swanky.

TIS: What else do you look for on eBay?

JB: I collect trompe-l’oeil porcelain pieces and old Tiffany earthenware from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I also collect watercolor renderings of interiors. I’ve gotten a lot of things on eBay, including remnants of fabric, usually in small graphic prints that remind me of Albert Hadley, that I might use to upholster a stool or to make a pillow. I’m a big collector, though I try to be very particular about what I buy. I live in a condominium and don’t have a ton of space, so I have to edit.

TIS: Any search tips?

JB: I usually look for specific designers and things related to old decorators like Dorothy Draper, or in terms of fabrics I plug in manufacturers like Brunschwig & Fils and D. Porthault. For books I have to be a little more general in my searches to get better results. I don’t put in as many filters. For entertaining books, I might look at entertaining in the books category and click on “antiquated” and end up with nice happy finds I might not have been expecting.